Well, I've decided to jump on the nVidia 4xx bandwagon. It was when I installed the new drivers for my current GFX cards that made me do it. I can't believe nVidia have seen fit to tell me that my 8500GT is now no longer good enough to use for PhysX. My G92 8800GT and my G86 8500GT ran all my current games really well right up to Fallout 3 and COD:MW AND they had a Windows index rating of 6.9 so I was pulling my hair out for a while trying to find the right installation methods to reactivate the PhysX option...........but alas, not happening. Now I know the real gamers out there are probably thinking "Fallout 3, current?" but from what I can tell the settings all set to max under the nVidia 3D settings must still work the hardware pretty........well.......hard. It was completely impulse driven and yes, I may have bought a bad egg but hay, never know if I don't give em' the benefit of the doubt will I? And for £259 I don't think it's too bad a purchase (right now, if I believed in God, I'd be praying to him). This is the one I've spent my hard earned cash on; KFA2 nVIDIA GTX 470 Geforce 1GB I'll let you all know if the cooler is a let down as I suspect. Go on........tell me I'm a fool easily parted with his money.
Well, with the 6870 coming out next week, at £225 (rumoured) performing at a 5870s level, I'd say your a fool.
Well, I could point out that you could get the card cheaper but I'd never do that. I imagine some will slate you for not buying a 5870 with that kind of money. Personally I think the 470 is a damn good card and is actually very acceptable in terms of noise.
Let me understand this. You were perfectly happy with your current setup, and upon installing new drivers, you no longer had the availability of PhysX, a technology whose usefulness is questionable, so you purchased a brand new card (instead of rolling back your drivers) on the eve of ATi releasing 6xxx series? I'm with Ph4zed, you got taken for a ride.
Problem is; ATI=No PhysX Even if a driver hack comes out for each new ATI revision it means agro waiting for it to surface, installing them and then optimizing them for the games. I'd rather be playing the games in the precious time I have than tweeking the PC trying to get them running at thier best. I do like PhysX......have done ever since the PS2's Emotion Engine. For me it brings a dead picture to life.
I tried to revert to the previous drivers even going so far as to edit the registry in order to wipe the current version but for some reason I couldn't get the PhysX option to show. It's don't think it's the drivers that are the trouble. I'm convinced that the last windows update for my 8800GT must have flashed the cards firmware without asking me. Instead of one for GFX and one for PhysX, they are now a combined CUDA count, not even bridged and not on the same PCIE bus of my mobo. How?
For future reference, on the nVidia website, there is an option to download beta and archived drivers. They have the previous four or five releases available for download, in case these sort of snafus occur.
It worked well enough for over a year. Not on games like Crysis or FarCry 2 mind, but well enough to make me happy to turn the PC on instead of my PS3. I tried. I even tried installing the original manufacturers drivers on the disks that came with them with one card in at a time. I even tried putting the 8500GT in with the 8800GT and its drivers installed on the rig while it was running. All that would happen was the 8500GT would take over running the display. Very weird and very frustrating as I was doing a fresh install due to obtaining a new SSD.
I personally wouldn't have done what you did, however the 470 isn't a particularly bad card for what you paid for it (I'd imagine it's much cheaper now than it used to be) and it should last you at least another year. As long as you're happy with the £250 spent, who cares? It performs a function, it does it well, and you didn't mind spending the cash. I'm hoping the Geforce 5-series released in December (rushed, no doubt) will be worth paying for.
MW1, Fallout 3, Crysis and Far Cry 2 don't even use PhysX. The performance of those can be credited solely to the 8800. Do you want to sell the 8500 now? I might take it for friends and family builds if the price is right.
470 is a good purchase. i am wishing that i'd have waited to buy 480. for the same reason as you: less hassle to get games (especially ones with physx) working.
How can you Geforce 8500 get 6.9? My GTX 260 has 6.8. In fact, if I recall my 8800GT, my WEI score is much lower. Anyway, it's not a real benchmark tool, The game you have mentioned does not use PhysX. Here is the list of games that uses PhysX http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html I would say, save my money for 2011 for Nvidia next GPU.... hopefully one that doesn't blow out flames on the back. Patient is rewarding If you need performance, than overclock bit your GPU. To have a good PhysX experience, you need a Geforce 8800GT to start with... lower model will the same performance as if the CPU takes care of it.
Sorry, those were just a time reference (couldn't be arsed to check my game covers or the net for the ones that didn't have a cover), mind you, they do use physics post processing but on the CPU not on the GFX hardware and if I can get away with upgrading my CPU and board then re-installing all my games for another year or two then great. Judging by the games that do use the PPU capabilities of the nVidia cards I have seen or played, I like that little bit extra depth (Cryostasis and yes, even Mirrors edge come to mind). Also with 3D coming into the fold I feel the workload difference will be even more noticeable with the PhysX games list ever growing.
Apparently the 6800 or 6900 ATI's will be their high end GPU's. If Nvidia dont pull their socks up soon I will be going back to ATI soon for sure. I am fedup with these long driver releases. Whats taking them so long to sort out their drivers?
